Pride, Prejudice and the Kitchen Sink
by ceirdwenfc
Summary: An unlikely meeting in a London coffee shop. Written for amor remanet for the rarepair shorts Wishlist Challenge Summer 2009 on LJ.


The bell rang as the door closed. No one looked up. Zacharias Smith stood in the doorway shaking the rain from his overcoat and his hair. He spied an empty table in the corner and sat down, watching the wait staff deliver trays of food and cups of coffee to other patrons.

The table had a sticky film over it. Zacharias glanced around and slipped out the tip of his wand, scourgifying the beige Formica surface. He had just slid the wand back up his sleeve when his waitress stopped at his table. Her pen poised over the pad, she said nothing and waited for him to look at her.

Zacharias followed the curve of her hip to her small waist and was impeded from making eye contact when he found her breasts. They were lovely. They were large, but not too large. Round, but not perfect. Firm, but he imagined oh so soft, and much of them were spilling out of her scoop-neck black t-shirt. He somehow managed to tear his eyes away and followed the line of her neck to her pale long face, her pointed nose featuring prominently despite its smallness. He was about to say, 'coffee, black,' when he was stunned, but not silent.

"Pansy Parkinson?! Waiting tables in this Muggle coffee shop?!" He could barely keep the surprise out of his voice.

"Shh," she hissed. "Would you shut it? No one here knows about Muggles or Witches."

"Sorry," he said with a hint of laughter. "It's just that…of _all_ the people I went to school with, and that includes Lavender Brown and Gregory Goyle, you are the _last_ that I expected –" He paused to snicker again. "You're the last one I expected in _this_ kind of job."

"There's nothing wrong with an honest job." Her voice was its usual haughty. Her eyes flickered in anger, but she controlled herself.

"Honest? Really? That's rich coming from a…someone like you."

"Someone like me? What the fuck does that mean?" she hissed, trying to keep her voice low as she took a step closer to the table. "What does that mean, Smith?" She slammed her order book on the table and jammed the pen into the pocket of the apron tied around her waist. A few of the men at the counter turned to watch them with interest.

He watched her face, knowing that if she were to attack him it would show in her face first. _Watch their eyes_. That was always what Moody told them in fourth year. Well, technically, it was Barty Crouch, Jr., but he was pretending to be Moody, and truth be told, he gave some great Defense Against the Dark Arts lessons.

She slammed one hand down on the table and grabbed the collar of his coat with the other, repeating her question with a bit more venom in her voice. "What does that mean – _someone like me_?" Her voice was low and Zacharias felt a compulsion to check on his wand's whereabouts.

"I meant Slytherin," he muttered. "That's all. I would think that a Slytherin would find a way not to work in a place like this. You always had more pride than was natural. Or healthy," he added, glancing at her eyes one more time, but still finding it hard to get up that high on her body without pausing to admire those lovely breasts. He couldn't help it. It had been awhile for him since he and Megan had stopped dating, and he was fighting the urge to reach out and touch them. That would probably have ended his life, and Pansy seemed like the type to torture him slowly.

"Parkinson! You're done." The call came from the kitchen and she put her head down, releasing Zacharias' coat with a sigh.

For a moment, Zach thought that she was just fired, but she picked up her pad and offered to take his order anyway before she left for the night.

She brought back two cups of coffee and two plates of apple crumble and when she placed one of each in front of him and the others across from him, she surprised him by taking off her apron and sitting down on the opposite side of the booth.

"You don't mind, do you?"

He didn't. In fact, with her sitting across from him, he had a much better view of her chest. He shook his head, and took a sip of coffee. Mmm, he thought. He loved coffee. And the blacker, the better. What was the point of drinking the stuff if you doctored it up with sugar and milk? If he wanted sweet, he'd have a milkshake. It was the rich, deep flavor of the beans that came through when the coffee was kept natural.

"You don't think much of me, do you?" Her question brought him out of the coffee-lust commentary going on in his head.

"Sorry?"

"You don't think much of me? Or of Slytherins, do you?"

"Not much of Slytherins. I don't know you well enough to think about you at all."

"That's not very nice."

"It's not not nice. It's just true. I don't know you. We didn't know each other at Hogwarts. I have no idea why you're sitting here right now. You're angry at me for showing up here, though. You're too proud to think that you should work in a place like this, and the idea of waiting on me repulses you."

"That's funny, Smith. I was just thinking the same thing about you." She took a sip of her coffee, pulled a face and added about six sugars to the little cup. "You think you're too good to be in a place like this, except that _you_ had the choice, and chose to come in here anyway. I didn't have a choice."

"You have plenty of choices. At Hogwarts, you made the wrong ones."

"You have no idea what you're talking about. Yes, I followed my House; my friends. I had House pride. I have pride in myself, but I do what has to be done."

"Why are you here then? In this Muggle coffee shop? Why aren't you home working for wizards?"

"I like it here."

"No, you don't. You hate Muggles."

"I don't –"

"Don't lie to me, Parkinson. The truth comes out at two in the morning. I saw you palling around with Draco Malfoy and his cronies. You hate Muggles. So why are you working for them?"

"I don't _hate_ Muggles," she mumbled, her eyes watching her fingers tear apart the napkin. "You don't know anything about me. My mother –"

"Your mother is a Muggle?"

"No, you idiot. She married a Muggle. After my father died –"

He interrupted. "Wasn't he a Death Eater?"

"Yes."

"And wasn't he killed by Seamus Finnigan in the final battle?"

She looked Zach in the eye, and he saw hers starting to glisten with tears so far unshed. She gave him a little nod. She continued, " After he died, we were treated…horribly. Everyone hated us. So we left, and we ended up in the Muggle world, and she started working here and met a man. He works in London." She shrugged. "He's nice to us. That was five years ago." She drank some more coffee, avoiding looking at him again. "I want to come back. I just don't know how," she admitted.

They finished their crumble and coffee in silence. Zacharias noticed movements at the front of the coffee shop. One by one, the other patrons had been leaving. Zach hadn't noticed the place emptying out slowly. A large man in a greasy white, well, it used to be white, t-shirt came over, calling to Pansy as he came.

"Listen, love, I've got to get home. Is your friend going to be here all night?"

"No, but I can lock up if you like."

"Would you finish up the dishes too?"

"Of course."

Zacharias listened as Pansy answered her boss. He had never heard her without her sneer. She didn't sound condescending. She actually sounded nice, and it was comforting that he wasn't the only one lost in the Muggle world.

"I'll help," he offered.

"You wouldn't mind working so closely with a Slytherin?"

"Of course not, but I'm not scrubbing any greasy pans." He got up and placed his dishes on the tray on the counter, adding, "I've got my pride. Now where's that sink full of dirty dishes?"

"In the kitchen. Where else would you think we'd keep the sink? Git," she muttered under her breath, but Zacharias could hear the smile in her voice as he followed her through the swinging doors.


End file.
